SCIENCE'S STRUGGLE FOR POWER

At the Tercentenary Conference a group of the leading scholars present were asked their opinions concerning the establishment of a "supreme court of organized knowledge" as a future guide to human behavior. Just what form such an organization would take is not clear even to the professors, but in general it would be a periodic conference of the world's great minds, who through various means would dominate the thought of the layman and prick the bubbles of myth which keep dictators in power.

Such a proposal stirs up a flock of visions. The very name "Supreme court" gives a hint of the mercurial nature of the proposal. Such pretensions have not been made by learned men since the universal church of the middle ages lost its franchise to monopolize education. Not without malice Professor Dewey of Columbia dubbed it a "Constitutional Assembly of Intellectuals," and it evidently follows that the Harvard Yard is to be the Versailles Tennis Court.

The professors brought forth vague plans, and even these did not agree. A Frenchman was fatuous, an American was reflective, an Englishman was optimistic, but it took a Chinaman to pour cold water on the whole project in a stream of heartless logic. While Dr. Etienne Gilson had the European's traditional and misplaced confidence in the American public, Professor Malinowski of London asserted sensibly that any such organization hopeful of success must be backed by force. Here is nothing new. There is no doubt today that a League of Nations with "horsepower" would enforce the peace its founders dreamed of, but nationalism can hardly be overthrown by professors with a constitution, an office, and a mimeograph.

As there is no law between the nations today, so a "supreme court" of learning could never be more than a pretentious joke. Underneath it all lies science's long-nursed hope to drive the politicians from the temples and rule a brave new world through reason alone. It is Technocracy and Utopianism; it is Howard Scott, Aldous Huxley, and Henry Ford rolled into one. It is even H. G. Wells.

Dr. Hu Shih showed the frailty of the whole plan when he mentioned that for years there has existed a similar organization attached to Geneva, whose effectiveness has been thwarted by the same forces which neutralize the League of Nations itself.

If science is to bring about a better world it must concentrate on unifying itself. Meetings similar to the Tercentenary Conference should be held often in the future. In this way knowledge will be expanded and diffused among more and more people. The common man will become more educated through this diffusion of knowledge and he will remake the world of which the scholars dream.